Second Wave

Mountain Haze - Image © Kel Harvey

 
 

Having initially frightened the bejeezus out of everyone and only getting a grip on the basic facts of the virus' infectivity, potential lethality and mode of transmission all too late in the course of things to prevent what turned out to be one of the worst outbreaks in Europe; only then turning to lockdown and emergency economic measures to save millions from potential penury '...for as long as it takes...' the NonGovernment® then performs a U-Turn worthy of Ken Block, shooing everyone back out into wider society, all the while urging care to avoid infection. What has followed was entirely predictable by anyone with half a brain, and totally without the need for the multi-screen pandemic-bunkered team of super forecaster, The Mekon - Classic Dom to his chums - and his Treen minions.

With a potentially worse spike in infections and deaths staring us down, we now see the Tory NonGovernment®  moving back to its normal comfort zone. Compared to the earlier understandable and actually quite laudable neo-socialist efforts to usurp the natural precincts of Labour and put the country on a war footing and freezing the economy, we have shifted back into the more familiar right-wing command and control territory, thus giving our dire Home Secretary something to voice her odious views on - she-who-is-otherwise-silent. At least we can safely say we are now back on familiar ground: if it all goes pear-shaped, the plebs are to blame for not obeying the law and the NonGovernment® gets to carry on as normal, dishing out favours, contracts and enormous sums of our money to their mates.

That some people are culpable in causing the second wave of the pandemic is true, but only partly. Initially, practically everyone knuckled down and did the sensible thing, mostly without prompting and certainly without the need for draconian measures. In this first phase, the NonGovernment® were totally rudderless, going for the Grand Gestures that Boris Johnson is so fond of; his love of the Classical finding him desperate to emulate those Roman Emperors of whom he is so obviously in awe. Instead of the nitty-gritty, the detail, the boring-but-oh-so-important stuff being dealt with as early as the quarantining of returnees from Wuhan suggested was needed, we saw millions of pounds distributed either on the Grand Gestures or to friends and associates in the private sector, all the time allowing unfettered movement in and out of the country of tens of thousands of people, business as usual.

When they finally woke up to the reality that the disease was threatening to tear through the population at an ever-increasing velocity, it was already too late. But by the time lockdown came, many people had already voluntarily been acting responsibly without prompting and slogans; and without complaint. The problems that have arisen since the easing are: that however it was caveated, the return to work or risk losing your jobs message and the partial re-opening of the hospitality trade to encourage people to socialise and spend has resulted in a much more relaxed mindset in many cities.

Living in North Wales, we have generally not relaxed our guard as a whole, reflected in much lower per capita rates of infection at least in the rural areas - the urban centres of South Wales and the Northeast taking the brunt of the disease and skewing the figures for the nation as a whole; our county had no reported cases last week, but we recently had a brief but very concentrated tourist season, so who knows what the next couple of weeks will bring. What is needed, though is for the furlough scheme to be extended indefinitely '...for as long as it takes...' and for the NonGovernment® to stop turning the moral screws on the people it is paid to represent and protect. It is morally and economically incumbent on them to stop vacillating and buckle up for the duration.